SAMHAIN: A Ninety-Second Quiz

A few years ago, a New Zealand friend asked if we were going to host another Sam Hayne party in November. The question actually threw me a bit at first (I thought he was referring to some traditional Irish musician I hadn’t heard of) until I realised he was actually talking about Samhain, the ancient festival that’s bizarrely ended up as a precursor to Halloween.

Over the years, I’ve become less and less enamoured with the increasingly commercialized Halloween, which of course bears little resemblance (okay, none) to the original festival from which it was derived. As a result, I’ve been doing some work on possible revitalizations of the original Samhain festival and, as part of that, created a simplified quiz to work through how it transformed over time. This is still at a very early stage of development and forms only a tiny part of the whole story but if you want to test your understanding of what Samhain was and how it relates to the contemporary celebration of Halloween, please feel free to give it a go by clicking on the image below.

If you have any feedback, suggestions etc. that would be warmly received.

5 comments on “SAMHAIN: A Ninety-Second Quiz”

Driving the cattle between two fires (to remove ticks and other parasites) and then reducing the herd size before winter (and corresponding feast) was converted to “devil take the hindmost” when the young lads ran through.